Revisited Online: May 26, 2020 -- Ongoing
Organized by Marja van der Loo, associate curator

A Worker Reads History

  • Milton Rogovin
    Untitled, from the series "Working People: Atlas, San Jose," 1978-79
    Gelatin silver print on paper, 10× 8 inches
    Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Jon Vein

    A Worker Reads History

     

    Who built the seven gates of Thebes?
    The books are filled with names of kings.
    Was it the kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone?
    And Babylon, so many times destroyed.
    Who built the city up each time? In which of Lima's houses,
    That city glittering with gold, lived those who built it?
    In the evening when the Chinese wall was finished
    Where did the masons go? Imperial Rome
    Is full of arcs of triumph. Who reared them up? Over whom
    Did the Caesars triumph? Byzantium lives in song.
    Were all her dwellings palaces? And even in Atlantis of the legend
    The night the seas rushed in,
    The drowning men still bellowed for their slaves.

    Young Alexander conquered India.
    He alone?
    Caesar beat the Gauls.
    Was there not even a cook in his army?
    Phillip of Spain wept as his fleet
    was sunk and destroyed. Were there no other tears?
    Frederick the Great triumphed in the Seven Years War.
    Who triumphed with him?

    Each page a victory
    At whose expense the victory ball?
    Every ten years a great man,
    Who paid the piper?

    So many particulars.
    So many questions.

     

    —Bertolt Brecht, 1936